Natsukashii
by WhereverUAre
Summary: The Mist and all the charm speak could try their best but were not strong enough to keep Jason from remembering his love for one special praetor. #2 One-shot. Natsukashii - Japanese for evocative longing for something past.


"So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you."

―Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Jason stared at his knees in horror. Piper had three hours ago but he was still sitting in his room, reeling in the horror. After getting his memories back, he had thought that he remembered everything. After Piper's confession, it broke his heart and crushed his soul. He tried to IM her but was unable to reach her. He threw his back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling and was immediately lost in thought.

"If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever."

―Alfred Tennyson

It started out small. When Argo II was flying over a field of flowers and they were hazily shifting with the wind, Jason leaned over the railing and was suddenly lost. The white and light pink flowers seemed to transport him elsewhere. He was suddenly calm and at peace. The air smelled like fresh linen and he suddenly carved hot chocolate. His trance was broken when Frank called his name.

"No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go,  
we will go together, over the waters of time.  
No one else will travel through the shadows with me,  
only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon."

\- Pablo Neruda

The next time was in his dreams. It was a strange hazy dream, as if he were seeing everything through dense fog. He was in bed, naked. And he was lying next to someone. She was sleeping on her side and facing away from him. The sheets were emanating a calming smell while mellow sunlight danced around the room. For some reason, he couldn't move in the bed. He reached out to touch the girl's bare shoulder, as if he had done it a million times before when she swatted his hand away and continued to snore away to glory. Somehow, the helpless frustrating situation did nothing to shake his calm. He felt at home. He heard a dog bark in the background and the girl woke up with a start. Right when she got up and was about to face Jason, the dream ended.

After that every dream and every flash of a memory frustrated Jason more. He did not understand these visions, that horrible feeling of longing to see someone so badly that he felt like someone was constricting his windpipe. Every time he recollected that girl and her long black hair, his heart would painfully skip a beat. He started becoming more distant, irritable and anxious. He started trying to rake his brains, try to solve this mystery and keep on the lookout for more clues. He would hear Piper voice as he would drift off to sleep. Everything about being with her started seeming wrong to him.

"We see our sins reflected everywhere: in the pallor of our intimates' faces, in the scratching of tree branches against windows, in the strange movements of everyday objects." ― Anna Godbersen, The Luxe

The next time he and Piper walked in for dinner, she tried to hold his hand in front of the other heroes. Immediately, his hand recoiled and only one extremely random though popped into his head.

"What if Octavian saw?"

Surprised at his own reaction, Jason smiled wryly at Piper and took her hand when he saw how her face fell.

"Sorry, instinct."

She smiled brightly and gripped his hand tightly.

Jason tried to shake the feeling and enjoy his meal while Percy joked but he just could not get his heart into it. These were possibly the last days of the Human world, he could die by the turn of the hour. Don't spend it being paranoid and morose, he berated himself and paid more attention to the conversation.

Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little? For all my despair, for all my ideals, for all that – I love life. But it is hard, and I have so much – so very much to learn.

\- Sylvia Plath

They stopped Argus II in a field of flowers after a particularly vicious attack of angry spirits. Far away, families were sitting on picnic blankets with wicker baskets packed with food. Children, pet dogs and laughter filled the valley. The heroes looked on from the shadows of their ship as Leo and Piper fixed it up. Annabeth and Percy walked towards the families, holding hands. Frank morphed into a dog and ran ahead chasing his tail while Hazel ran after him, laughing exuberantly. Jason walked behind them, soaking in the sun, remembering that they were not just fighting for some tempermental, unfair gods. This is what they were fighting for. These moments of human clarity. As he walked closer to where the heroes had settled down, he noticed two dogs running around. One was a gold haired Afghan Hound and the other silver haired. Jason's heart jumped into his throat and started pounding painfully. For some reason he knew that this was not a coincidence. This was another hint after so long! The dogs happily chased each other around and ran back to their owner when a low whistle spilt through the air. Jason saw a dark haired girl in a white cotton dress. Jason leapt to his feet and walked towards her. Once close enough, the dark haired girl looked at him. Her startling light blue eyes pierced his hopes cruelly. Suddenly, Jason's eyes filled up with tears. This was not the girl he was trying to identify but she reminded him enough of the wisp of a memory to break his heart, to remind him of how much he missed that girl, how much he longed to see her again, just to say her name once. He wiped away the tears with the edge of his sleeve. If the other heroes noticed, they did not say anything. He turned around and walked back to Argo II thinking that anything, even distracting himself with Piper was better than feeling pain like this.

"I want to know you moved and breathed in the same world with me."

—F. Scott Fitzgerald

Jason looked into the vast skies as he strained his mind. The dark skies, darker than black felt so familiar. As if he were home, delving into the night skies. The sparkling stars reminded him of the twinkles in her eyes. He was so close. Oh so close to remembering him again. In a fit of longing, Jason screamed into the darkness. He screamed out his heart's content till he fell to his knees. He left out a long mourning sigh. But he knew that she was waiting for him. That she was waiting listlessly, tirelessly to return to fix him. He would just have to keep fighting for those occasional flashes and dreams. He would figure it out and find her,if she didn't do it first.

"Then love knew it was called love.  
And when I lifted my eyes to your name,  
suddenly your heart showed me my way."

\- Pablo Neruda

She emerged from the ship with her bag pack. And right before taking Nico and Coach Hedge's hand, she turned around in a moment of weakness, when her facade glitched just for a second, for what if she never saw him again, what if she died and never saw his face again, she hugged Jason and promptly jumped into the shadows. That smell of fresh linen lingered in the air as Jason was shook by the revelation. Her dark hair from the skies, her olive skin from the parchment, her smell like fresh linen, her decisive gaze. This was she and she was gone again. He would have to toil in pain and longing for another few weeks to make things right again. It was Reyna. It always was her and would always be her. In his heart, he knew, that no matter how dangerous the challenges in front of the two of them, they would find each other again, be one why didn't she say anything? His heart had been pounding impossibly hard when he saw her arrive, when Piper was already there, slipping her hand into his. That look of pain that flashed through her face then. It all made sense. The hazy mist whenever he had met her after being the Piper, the whispers he would hear before falling asleep, the Piper's odd insecurity. He squared his shoulders and asked Piper to come meet him in his room.


End file.
